Man, the news media put so much spin on this story it developed backspin!

Basically, there has been a big brouhaha over the first U.S congressman (Democrat Keith Ellison) to be sworn into office, not on the Bible, but on the Quran.,

The article notes that "Ellison's swearing-in photo opportunity drew more media than they had ever seen in the history of the U.S. House."

So far so good. But congressman Ellison decided to throw in a twist. An ordinary copy of the Quran wouldn't do. So he actually had them hunt down the copy owned by Thomas Jefferson. Huh?

Gets deep here. Mr. Ellison "said he chose to use Jefferson's Quran because it showed that "a visionary like Jefferson" believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources."

Can we all sing one round of Kumbaya! Man with a personal library of 6,500 books gots to be well rounded wouldn't you think?

Well, not exactly. Turns out Mr. Jefferson was wrangling with a nasty probem as in "the Muslim pirate slavers who over many centuries enslaved millions of Africans and tens of thousands of Christian Europeans and Americans in the Islamic "Barbary" states."

Some folks in the congress wanted to just pay tribute to the pirates and go along to get along. But not Mr. Jefferson. "He believed there would be no end to the demands for tribute and wanted matters settled "through the medium of war."

So they set up a meeting with an ambassador for the other side. This is how it went:

"During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts."

"In a later meeting with the American Congress, the two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."

Long story short the Americans ended up paying tribute for fifteen years, running up a bill in the millions of dollars (which had to be bucks back then when they didn't even know how to spell inflation).

But that must have got stale because eventually "Declaring that America was going to spend "millions for defense but not one cent for tribute," Jefferson pressed the issue by deploying American Marines and many of America's best warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast."

Well, okay, happy ending. "In 1805, American Marines marched across the desert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves."

"During the Jefferson administration, the Muslim Barbary States, crumbling as a result of intense American naval bombardment and on shore raids by Marines, finally officially agreed to abandon slavery and piracy."

But here's the irony. "Jefferson's victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn, with the line, "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we will fight our country's battles on the land as on the sea."

"Jefferson had been right. The "medium of war" was the only way to put an end to the Muslim problem. Mr. Ellison was right about Jefferson. He was a "visionary" wise enough to read and learn about the enemy from their own Muslim book of jihad."

So the next time you see me on the bus with a copy of a Marvel comic book tucked under my arm, don't go jump to the conclusion that I'm not a deep thinker!